Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmucchiello" data-source="post: 2997229" data-attributes="member: 813">Dude, how many times did I say there's nothing wrong with low-magic style of play? Don't put words in my mouth, especially that I'm calling anyone stupid. I'm not.The thread is supposed to be about stretching the amount of time you can play out those old plots without being low-level magic. I say this is impossible. You can't keep high level magic and keep playing the same types of stories as you had at first level. I'm also saying that the natural progression is to change to a different type of story: one where teleports and commune live in harmony with your plot. If you can't do this, you can't play at high level.High level characters will never fear a town guard with a crossbow. They will find the path to hidden shrine/treasure vault/whatever. They will rest and recouperate in a magnificent mansion. They cast heroes' feast every day just so they are immune to fear and poison and to make sure no one is diseased, the extra hit points and +1 AB and Will save is just icing on the cake. They collect diamonds for raise dead religously. They have a lair with hallow, private sanctum, and guards and ward already cast on it. They treat with demons and devils for breakfast. They travel the planes. They carry a fortune inconceivable to the common man in the belt pouch. They do favors for the gods. They are like gods among man.And because of these things they do not check out the goblin village in the hills to see if they are massing for an assault on the village. They do not rid the village graveyard of its recent ghoulish arrival. They do not guard a caravan travelling on foot between to large towns. They do not break into the councilman's manor house to find out if he is skimming money off the tax dole. These kinds of characters do not face the same sorts of conflicts as the 1st level parties do. And this is why I say mundane skill rolls for high level characters are not dramatic.If, in your view, that is not how high level play should be, you are playing the wrong game. That, I believe, is what high level D&D is. The only way to take high level characters back down to street level is to nerf magic bigtime because default D&D magic is what makes it possible to do all the things I said above. And by nerfing magic, you are reducing magic's influence on the game, i.e. low-magic gaming. In case I'm not clear, there's nothing wrong with low-magic gaming. It just isn't compatible with high level play using the RAW. Now, if Wulf wants to revise his OP and say low-magic solutions are now valid solutions, so be it. But I would love to see a non-low magic solution to the problem of high level play. I'm the devil's advocate. I say Wulf has set up an impossible situation. Nothing I have seen has changed my opinion.Just because I rally for the high level game as is, doesn't mean I wouldn't mind seeing a more street level game without the power inflation. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with this thread. But I haven't seen any solutions that weren't low-magic solutions. For example:Someone said something about feats that duplicated magic abilities. I wrote a <a href="http://www.throwingdice.com/easyfile/file.php?show=20051011101146710" target="_blank">PDF</a> about doing that 3 years ago. Another concept would cut down spells available to the wizard. This just makes the wizard less able to be a utility man. The sorcerer just doesn't work if you cut down his spells per day.Another idea I've kicked around is no advancement by level. Isn't really D&Dish though. It works though in my unreleased Simplified OGL Fantasy game that I will finish someday. It's a game system perhaps even grittier than Grim Tales. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Arbitrarily capping skill points only makes the spell replacements more valuable.I'm out of breath. (Figuratively of course) Oh, and I rolled a 15 on the die for my will save, what is the DC of this thread!!!</blockquote>

Verification